And so it turned out to be.
After a night of rain and gales, it was an easy decision to cancel today’s flight as VFR under cloud was not an option. We managed some sightseeing and general preparation for sectors ahead, and a visit to the airport Met Office promised encouraging weather for the next day.
Luckily we had built a bad weather day into our programme so onward clearances through Egypt and Jordan were still valid.
Day 4 dawned wet and we wandered around a largely deserted Corfu town. Around 2:45 pm, we heard the sound of a light aircraft and saw an unmistakeable Piper Malibu on base leg for runway 35 at Corfu. Not long after, a slightly stirred Phil arrived at the hotel having flown through the cold front over Italy with embedded CB’s at FL250.
The forecast for the following day was not good; said cold front would be over Greece generating ice at my flight levels and effectively keeping me grounded.
After a day’s sight seeing in Pula – there are interesting Roman remains to look at but otherwise the city is quiet on a Sunday in early February, we set off for Corfu, climbing up to FL110 through thin cloud. This cleared quite quickly to give us splendid views of the Adriatic as we travelled southwards through Croatia, Montenegro and Albania before landing in fine weather at Corfu. Having looked at the weather map and seen the forecast for bad weather approaching from the west, we should have refuelled and set off for Rhodes. But we were due to meet Phil here the next day so set off for our hotel in Corfu town instead.
434 nm in a flight time of 2 hours 35 minutes
Our journey started at Lydd, a day earlier than planned to take advantage of good weather and fly over the Alpes at FL150 directly to Pula in Croatia. We had flown there from Gloucester Airport the night before having collected the aircraft from RGV after a 150 hour check. A longish flight – 800 nm but in good weather and completed in a time of 4 hours 45 minutes.
This is the first long range trip to be made in G-TRJB. After purchase in 2011, long range tanks were fitted giving a still air range of 1350 nm and a comprehensive avionics refit undertaken giving twin Garmin VHF COM/NAV and GPSS sets, a Sandel 3500 EHSI and Avidyne EX600 MFD with satellite weather download, retaining the Garmin 330 transponder, King KN64 DME and KR87 ADF.
The trip comes about as a result of a wish to visit the Oman and will be made in tandem with Phil Caiger in his Piper Malibu. This has a shorter range than Juliet Bravo so legs have to be planned accordingly but Phil can go faster and higher. This will be useful as Phil will arrive first and can arrange for fuel to be all ready and waiting when we arrive.
We have decided to meet up in Corfu and then travel on together to Rhodes, Aqaba in Jordan, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and finally Muscat. There Phil will meet up with his family for a half term holiday while Miranda and I go on a week’s travel round Oman. We will then foregather a week later for the return trip by essentially the same route.
Apart from a thorough check of all aircraft systems, other equipment we are getting include a hose and fuel pump in case refuelling from barrels is necessary (in the event, this was not used) and a satellite phone which can be wired through the aircraft intercom system. This proved most useful in advising handlers of revised ETAs. My Jepp subscription has been extended to include the Middle East so that all required landing charts will be available on the Avidyne MFD.